UN chief makes urgent appeal for Haiti funds

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has made an urgent appeal for funds to battle Haiti's cholera epidemic as Cuba said it was sending another 300 doctors and nurses to the stricken nation.

More than 1800 people have been killed in the epidemic since mid-October and experts say hundreds of thousands could be hit by the disease.

Mr Ban told a UN General Assembly debate on Haiti that a UN appeal for US $164 million made last month has only been 20 percent funded by international donations.

"I ask you urgently to help meet the appeal in full," he said adding that the figures put forward by UN humanitarian agencies was "conservative."

"Almost certainly they will have to be revised upwards," he said. "This will not be a short term crisis, we cannot think short term in our response. Millions of people look to us for immediate survival."

Without international help to rebuild its infrastructure after a January earthquake that left 250,000 dead and supply clean water to counter the epidemic, "Haiti has no sustainable future, no hope for a better future," he said.

Mr Ban promised new efforts to discover the origin of the cholera outbreak. Suspicions that Nepalese peacekeepers had brought the disease caused riots in Haiti but Mr Ban reaffirmed that all tests carried out at the Nepalese camp had proved negative.

Cuba's UN ambassador Leo Brouwer said that his country would be sending another 300 doctors and nurses to join the 900 already in the impoverished nation battling the cholera crisis.

Mr Brouwer said the 38 Cuban medical centers in Haiti would be increased to 49.